I ask Yolanda, “What about you?”
She doesn’t bother to look back at me when she answers.
“What about me?”
“Tell us about your family.”
She stares down at the frying pan, moving the cubes of pork around as they sizzle.
“My parents, as you can imagine, have long since left this earth. As for children … I only ever had one child. A son. He grew up a good boy. Always listened. Always followed the rules. He was ambitious. He wanted to go to Mexico City and become a lawyer. I never understood why he wanted to become a lawyer. One day I asked him, and he said it was because lawyers made a lot of money. He said that was his goal—to make a lot of money. He always told me that one day he would make enough money so that he could buy me a place to live along the ocean. He was a sweet boy who meant well, but …”
She lets it hang there and doesn’t complete the thought.
I say, “Was a sweet boy. Does that mean he passed away, too?”
“Yes, but not in the way you might think. All his talk about becoming a lawyer was when he was just a boy. My son meant well, but he was not smart. At least not smart enough to become a lawyer. To get into the right schools. I think he realized this as he got older. When he became a teenager, he realized that if he wanted to make money, he would need to find something else to do. He did not want to become a farmer and work in the fields all day. He did not want to leave me by myself either, so he decided to stay in town, but …”
She pauses again, turning to look at us.
“Fernando Sanchez Morales did not always own that house up on the hill. His father lived there before him. His father also worked for the cartel, but he wasn’t so awful.”
Another pause. Yolanda shakes her head again, wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I know that sounds strange, but he was good to the people here. Morales would never have allowed those narcos to terrorize the town. He understood that towns like ours were just part of life. We were here to stay. When he became older, I worried something might happen to him. I worried somebody worse would take his place. As they say, better the devil you know than the devil you do not. I suppose Fernando could be even worse than he is, but he is bad. He is ruthless. And he was just a boy at the time, too, and my son knew this, and somehow he managed to meet Fernando somewhere and convinced Fernando to let him work for the cartel.”
“Your son was a narco.”
The old woman nods. The cubes of pork keep sizzling in the pan. They’ve been on much too long, and Yolanda suddenly realizes this. She takes the pan off the stove, turns to a large bowl, and drops them in.
“As I told you, my son was not very smart. He thought being a narco would pay a lot of money. And yes, it did bring him more money than he would have gotten working the fields, but it was dangerous work, too. I told him that. I pleaded with him. Begged him. He knew how I felt about the narcos, especially after what they did to me. But he did not care.”
“What happened to him?”
Yolanda covers the pork. She grabs another frying pan, sets it over the stove, and begins sautéing the onions.
“I do not know. I finally had enough. I told him that if he wanted to continue living in this house—if he wanted to continue being my son—then he needed to quit being a narco. He left that night, and I never saw him again.”
“How long ago was this?”
She pauses for a beat, thinking about it. Then she shrugs, shakes her head, as she keeps moving the onions around in the frying pan.
“I cannot remember. It has been at least thirty years. Maybe thirty-five years.”
“Maybe he’s still out there somewhere. Maybe he’s just been saving enough money to buy you that place by the ocean.”
Yolanda wipes the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand again.
“No, he is dead. He has been dead for some time now. A mother knows. She feels it.”
Before I can say anything to this, the front door bangs open.
The Glock has been in my right hand this entire time. I raise it as I turn toward the front of the house, ready to shoot whoever’s burst inside, but it’s the boy from earlier, who had found me and Gabriela standing outside and took us to the town meeting.
He stops short when he sees the gun, his eyes widening. He’s breathing fast, like he just sprinted a mile, and his face is flush from the exertion.
I lower the gun to my side.
“What’s wrong?”
He pauses to catch his breath and blurts out the two words I’ve been waiting to hear since the moment the townspeople agreed to kick out the narcos.
“They’re coming.”
Thirty-Nine
They come in three vehicles—two pickup trucks and an SUV.
The SUV is sandwiched between the two pickup trucks as they tear into town down the unpaved main road toward the square.
That’s where I’m waiting, right in the middle of the road, the Glock held loosely at my side.
The first pickup swerves and skids to a stop. Several men are crowded in the back cab, all of them armed with rifles, and the moment the pickup stops, they jump down and aim their rifles at me.
I don’t move. I don’t raise the gun. I just stand there and wait for the other two vehicles to stop, for the men in the cab of the second pickup to jump down and aim their rifles at me too.
I barely glance at them. I keep my focus on the SUV. It just
